Walton County Emergency Operations Center Receives Grant Money

Christmas has arrived several weeks early for the Walton County Emergency Operation’s Center which is run by the Sheriff’s Office.  EOC Director, Captain Mike Barker, has learned the Florida Emergency 9-1-1 Board presented his office $214,684.49.  This follows a highly competitive grant application process with similar size counties’ in the state. The Rural County Grant is funded through the fifty-cent surcharge placed on all land based and cell phones in Florida.

Captain Barker says the lion share of the monies ($212,235.49) will go toward the consolidation of the EOC into the Sheriff’s Office Main Administrative Building on Triple G Road.  Work is currently underway to redesign that facility to handle all 9-1-1 communications.   Presently, those functions are handled at the 1970-era EOC building off of U.S. Highway 90 in DeFuniak Springs.

Captain Barker hopes to complete the consolidation of 9-1-1 before the start of the 2010 Hurricane Season which gets underway on June 1.  It will mean Sheriff’s Office Dispatch functions and E 9-1-1 will be combined into one communication center.  The objective is to improve emergency response time and overall efficiency of the system.

Besides the Walton County Sheriff’s Office EOC consolidation expenditure, the grant allocates $2,450 to the DeFuniak Springs Police Department.  Those funds will be earmarked to maintain a portion of that agency’s E 9-1-1 answer center equipment.